Procedural technicalities, appeals court stymie CDL rule change

By Alan Wooten
The Center Square

As a North Carolina congressman’s bill awaits committee action, a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia on Monday temporarily halted a rule change for non-domiciled commercial learner’s permits and commercial driver’s licenses.

The Sept. 26 rule change announced by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came between the spotlights of triple-fatal crashes involving 18-wheelers in Florida on Aug. 12 and Oct. 21 in California. Enforcement of the rule is on hold while the merits of motions are being judged; in other words, the stay is not reflective of those merits.

The Public Citizen Litigation Group; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, commonly known as AFSCME; the American Federation of Teachers; and two drivers filed litigation against the change in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association is leading the support along with a number of Republican lawmakers in the Beltway.

U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., is among them. His Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act, known also as House Resolution 5688, was filed Oct. 3 and has languished in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure since.

“Passing this bill and getting it signed into law will protect these critical safety reforms from being undone by future court decisions or a new administration,” said Todd Spencer, president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association. “Congress must act immediately to make President Trump’s non-domiciled CDL crackdown the law of the land.”

When Rouzer filed, at least 12 people including two children had died, and 15 were injured in five crashes, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association said. All were linked to non-domiciled CDL holders.

“The Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act is a necessary response to the troubling findings of widespread non-compliance in state licensing agencies and a string of tragic, preventable crashes involving illegal immigrant drivers,” Rouzer said. “This legislation ensures only individuals with lawful immigration status and a legitimate reason to operate commercial vehicles in the U.S. are entrusted with CDLs. We’re closing dangerous loopholes and restoring accountability. We must never, under any circumstance, jeopardize public safety by allowing those here illegally to get behind the wheel of a big rig.”

Plaintiffs disagree.

“This unlawful rule seems intended to put people authorized to work in the United States out of work, solely because of the prejudices of the Trump administration,” Wendy Liu, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in a release through the AFSCME. “We are asking the court to promptly invalidate the rule to prevent devastating consequences for our clients and the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who depend on commercial driver’s licenses for their livelihoods.”

Writing a nationally published opinion piece three weeks ago, Rouzer said, “Many of these drivers cannot even speak or read English, a necessity for any driver to safely operate a big rig. It is hardly believable this could be the case, but unfortunately it is true.

“These non-English speaking, untrained, and unfit drivers who put Americans on the road at risk, are being enabled by negligent state enforcement.”

Duffy said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s audit of crashes “uncovered both a catastrophic pattern of states issuing licenses illegally to foreign drivers, as well as the fact that even if the current regulatory framework is followed, it can fail. The confluence of these two factors has created an imminent hazard on America’s roadways that must be fixed.”

The litigation of Jorge Rivera Lujan and Aleksei Semenovskii and their three ally groups was filed a day before the 10 Freeway crash in Ontario, Calif., killed three. California Highway Patrol says 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh of India was behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler that didn’t brake starting a rear-end crash involving eight vehicles.

Prosecutors say on Aug. 12 that Harjinder Singh was driving an 18-wheeler and tried to U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” The speed limit at mile marker 171 is 70 mph. Three people in a van behind them, with a tractor-trailer suddenly blocking the lane, perished.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Harjinder Singh failed the written portion of the CDL 10 times. After he had been taken into custody, in an interview with the Motor Carrier Administration, he had correct responses to two of 12 verbal questions on an English language proficiency assessment and correctly identified only one of four highway traffic signs.

Homeland Security filed an arrest detainer for Jashanpreet Singh, saying he entered the country through the southern border in 2022 and was released into the United States by the Biden administration. Harjinder Singh is believed to have come to America in 2018 and gained his CDL despite no documentation for being in the country.

Neither man named Singh is related, according to published reports.

“The administration’s new rule prevents immigrants who are lawfully present in the country and authorized to work from supporting themselves and their families,” said President Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Lujan has lived in the United States since he was 2 – a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, or DACA as created by the Obama administration in 2012 – and driven a big rig for 11 years. He said the new rule stopped hsi CDL renewal on Sept. 30.

Semenovskii has driven for five years and is seeking asylum from Russia.

“OOIDA and truckers across America support the Trump administration’s action to restore integrity to the issuance of non-domiciled CDLs,” Spencer said. “While the policy itself is sound, it is now tied up in court over procedural technicalities in how the rule was issued, not its substance. Representative Rouzer’s Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act reflects the Trump administration’s policy and would make it permanent.”